New details about the cancellation of Professor Stephen Hawking’s trip to Israel have emerged today after numerous news reports claiming that Prof. Hawking had chosen to boycott the State of Israel.

The Guardian, which broke the story late last night, claimed that Hawking was due to boycott Israel after receiving an erroneous statement from the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP), apparently with Hawking’s approval.

The statement said that the move was “his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there”.

However, a Cambridge university spokesperson has confirmed to The Commentator that there was a “misunderstanding” this past weekend, and that Prof. Hawking had pulled out of the conference for medical reasons.

Responding to an e-mail including an open letter to Prof. Hawking, shared nearly 2000 times, a University spokesman said: “Professor Hawking will not be attending the conference in Israel in June for health reasons – his doctors have advised against him flying.”

When asked for further information, the spokesperson confirmed that the BRICUP organisation had “assumed” Hawking’s position on the matter, and that it was fundamentally untrue.

However, a University spokesman told The Algemeiner that Prof. Hawking’s cancellation was due to a health issue.

“Professor Hawking will not be attending the conference in Israel in June for health reasons – his doctors have advised against him flying,” the spokesperson said.

Hawking’s spokesman has requested that the BDS supporters take down the assertion that Hawking supports the boycott, via AP:

University spokesman Holt said that Hawking “did not specifically approve” the committee’s statement. Holt said he had asked the committee to remove the posting.

Update No. 2 — despite quite clear denials on the record multiple times by Hawking’s official spokesman, the following email has been sent, as reported by CIF:

Though original reports yesterday that Stephen Hawking cancelled his planned Israel trip in order to express support the academic boycott were (as we reported earlier today) flatlydenied by Tim Holt, Acting Director of Communications at Cambridge and Hawking’s spokesperson, Holt recently informed us via an email of the following new statement just released by the University:

“We have now received confirmation from Professor Hawking’s office that a letter was sent on Friday to the Israeli President’s office regarding his decision not to attend the Presidential Conference, based on advice from Palestinian academics that he should respect the boycott.

“We had understood previously that his decision was based purely on health grounds having been advised by doctors not to fly.”

If this latest statement holds up, then the bad guys have won a victory, and Hawking should be counted among the bad guys. Shame and a stain on his legacy.

Further update: This apparently was Hawking’s statement, it’s not an embrace of the academic boycott movement, more the equivalent of refusing to cross a picket line, but it does support the claim that he withdrew from this conference on political grounds:

“I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this, I must withdraw from the conference. Had I attended I would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.”

I wonder if the result would have been different if Israeli academics were as aggressive at lobbying Hawking — but then again, the Israelis probably didn’t see this coming. Let that be another lesson.

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The Jewish state claims (wishes) you were too sick to travel. Thank you Professor Hawking for supporting the boycott. Israel’s Mideast malevolence is a sideshow. It enables the ever increasing Israeli/Jewish control of America’s government, finances and military-industrial complex. The Jewish state has occupied not just Palestine, but America too. Our democracy is being methodically destroyed from within and transformed into a world dominating racist ultrapower, the JEWISH STATE OF AMERICA.

John WV
it must have been tough for you growing up with a pansy for a father and a mommy who’s clit was bigger than daddy’s dick; and yours for that matter.oh! i’ve got some photos of your mommy doing a german shepherd

John WV
it must have been tough for you growing up with a pansy for a father and a mommy who’s clit was bigger than daddy’s dick; and yours for that matter.oh! i’ve got some photos of your mommy doing a german……… shepherd

Stephen “There is no Heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark” Hawking is overrated anyway. After seeing “Independence Day” I too “predicted” that Aliens might be hostile if we came in contact with them. And my “prediction” came 14 years before his. Who wants to book me for their conference or county fair?

“The Day the Earth Stood Still because Johnny Rotten Proved to have More Sense than Stephen Hawking.”

Johnny Rotten:

“I really resent the presumption that I’m going there [Israel] to play to right-wing Nazi jews [sic]. If Elvis-f-ing-Costello wants to pull out of a gig in Israel because he’s suddenly got this compassion for Palestinians, then good on him. But I have absolutely one rule, right? Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won’t understand how anyone can have a problem with how they’re treated.”

“The British blogosphere and commentaries in the Guardian are packed full of hysterical tirades against Rotten, who now goes by his birth name John Lydon and sings for his own band, Public Image Limited (PiL). Leftists in the UK are in a state of panic, largely because Lydon rejects their crude and grossly oversimplified views on the Middle East. Lydon, who lives in Venice, California, has breathed real democratic life and fire into a dull and misguided cultural war against Israel.”

LukeHandCool (who would remind everyone that IQ is just one of a myriad of important traits. And it seems there is little correlation, if any, between IQ and good character. Luke has met some not-too-bright people with hearts of gold in his time)

Whether you call it supporting the boycott or not wanting to cross a picket line – bottom line it sounds like Hawking is on the Palestinian side.

Rather sad that he would involve himself in this, tends to make academics look childish and petty. Maybe we’re seeing a diminishment of his common sense and more being said on his behalf rather than by him. Or maybe he figures the cure they’re working on won’t do him any good and it’s made him a tad bitter.